Posted on 01/22/2019 11:03:08 PM PST by SunkenCiv
"For abdominal cramp or bruises," states Marcus Varro, and I quote his very words, "your hearth should be your medicine chest. Drink lye made from its ashes, and you will be cured. One can see how gladiators after a combat are helped by drinking this." -- Pliny, Natural History XXXVI.203
The Roman gladiator calls to mind a fierce fighter who, armed with an assortment of weapons, battled other gladiators -- and even wild animals. What did gladiators eat? Roman author Pliny the Elder reported that gladiators went by the nickname "hordearii" ("barley-eaters") and drank a tonic of ashes after combat (Pliny, NH XVIII.72, XXXVI.203). A study recently published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE confirmed that gladiators really did eat mostly plants -- especially barley and wheat -- and may have indeed consumed ashes...
Researchers from the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Bern and the Medical University of Vienna aimed to investigate how the diet of gladiators compared to the rest of the population. Using spectroscopy to conduct isotopic analysis on the bone remains from a second-third-century C.E. gladiator cemetery in Roman Ephesus in Turkey, the researchers were able to confirm that the individuals buried in the cemetery consumed a mostly plant-based diet -- as did the rest of the population in Ephesus...
"Plant ashes were evidently consumed to fortify the body after physical exertion and to promote better bone healing," study leader Fabian Kanz explained to ScienceDaily. "Things were similar then to what we do today -- we take magnesium and calcium (in the form of effervescent tablets, for example) following physical exertion."
(Excerpt) Read more at biblicalarchaeology.org ...
It’s amusing that the authors of a couple of those Roman recipe books of modern times are surname “Brothwell”. ;^)
in case that link doesn’t lead to a working link:
http://www.google.com/search?q=ostia+antica+thermopolium&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&tbm=isch
in case that link doesn’t lead to a working link:
http://www.google.com/search?q=ostia+antica+thermopolium&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&tbm=isch
I'm relying on my memory, talking about what I learned at 14, which was more decades ago than I care to say. :-)
Thanks for the links...great pictures!
Little Caesars. Makes sense. They are a “Cassius and carry out” type of operation.
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. That is why he opened a “Little Caesars” pizza parlor in the Colosseum. Gladiators get half off if they survive.
You want “lion meat” on your pizza?
They ate pie...
#15. The foods you listed for the lower classes sounded like what we had to eat our first year of college. I wondered why they claimed it was “food for the gods” until I realized that I was going to TEMPLE University.
My Freshman year at college, the foods was pretty awful and some of it weird ( well, to me ), but the next three years changes had been made and the food was better. Nonetheless, we students always joked about the Saturday night dinner ( hotdogs, New England baked beans and New England brown bread ) claiming that they put salt peter in the beans. wink wink, nod nod......
They ate a lot of barley meal. Made them fat and able to with stand heavy fighting and body blows.
A flagon of ale and a leg of mutton?
I knew the ashes for upset stomach from survival school. It works.
Order taker: “You want “lion meat” on your pizza?”
Gladiator: “Yes”
Order taker: “Then bring me a lion.”
I stopped reading right there.
Fruit cake. Some of which I think are still being passed around.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitcake
"Noble" women.
lol
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